The jubilant event came on the heels of a much less joyful event in the local park. Two weeks earlier, a white girl had get uncomfortable with a black family grilling along the waterfront. When the family refused to follow her orders to leave, the woman called the police and even accused one of the women at the park of harassing her. Oakland city council member Lynette Gibson McElhaney was one of the many local leaders who called the incident what it was: blatant racism.

“Police are not private security for any white person that’s offended by the presence of black folks in our public spaces, ” McElhaney told HuffPost.

This incident is just one of the many recent events where black people have been harassed for — well — being black.

Bottom line: Leave black people alone, please and thanks.

While black Americans’ ability to go high when others run low is pretty much unmatched, it’s not the possibilities black Americans should have to use. By and large, all of the individuals who were harassed above were trying to live their everyday lives like everyone else. Our nation must stop viewing people that appear different as “other, ” and it must stop criminalizing blackness.

When black Americans are constantly harassed, abused, and bothered simply by being black in their jobs, schools, and neighborhoods, we promote a society that is unsafe and unwelcoming, further creating a nation divided and a culture of divisiveness. This country deserves better, and black people deserve better, too .